News & Articles

Published on Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Quick Hits - November 15, 2017

Hiring managers may have bias towards hiring veterans: In a study of 1,000 professionals by Korn Ferry, 58% said they believe their organizations’ hiring managers have an unconscious bias toward hiring veterans. The survey also shows that more than a third of respondents (34%) say that compared to five years ago, their organizations are placing a greater emphasis on hiring veterans. When asked which military skill set translates most directly to management roles within their organization, the greatest percentage (45%) said leadership, followed by team mentality (20%) and goal focus (14%). The survey did find that there is more work to be done when it comes to a programmatic approach to hiring veterans. Two-thirds of respondents said their organizations do not have clear messaging as to why veterans should choose their company as a future employer, 63% said they do not have veteran hiring outreach programs in place, and 69% said they do not provide training to hiring managers on veteran-specific hiring practices. Source: Korn Ferry 11/6/17

House passes bill to overturn NLRB Browning-Ferris decision: On November 7, the U.S. House of Representative passed the Save Local Business Act, which would effectively kill the National Labor Relations Board’s revised joint-employer standard that unleashed a firestorm when it was first announced in the Board’s the 2015 3-2 Browning-Ferris Industries decision. The bill, H.R. 3441, passed by a 242-181 vote that saw eight Democratic lawmakers crossing party lines to join the unified Republicans in favoring the legislation. The decision under Browning-Ferris no longer required that a joint employer not only possess the authority to control employees’ terms and conditions of employment, but also exercise that authority. The Board held that if otherwise sufficient, control exercised indirectly—such as through an intermediary—may establish joint-employer status under the Board’s revised standard. If passed, the Save the Local Business Act would have joint-employment found only where a person (which includes employers and their agents) "directly, actually, and immediately, and not in a limited and routine manner, exercises significant control over the essential terms and conditions of employment (including hiring employees, discharging employees, determining individual employee rates of pay and benefits, day-to-day supervision of employees, assigning individual work schedules, positions, and tasks, and administering employee discipline)." Source: CCH 11/10/17

New Director to OFCCP: Craig Leen will likely be named as the new head of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). While the Department of Labor has not formally confirmed or commented on this development, Leen’s appointment would come more than a year after Patricia Shiu departed the position in November 2016. Since that time, Tom Dowd has held the position of interim Director at OFCCP. Craig Leen currently serves as the City Attorney for Coral Gables, Florida. During his tenure as the city’s top attorney, Leen reportedly “gained national attention for Coral Gables and its propensity to sue high-profile corporations and use the city’s legal muscle to pursue critics.” In additional to his position with the City, Leen has also been an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law where Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta, to whom Leen would report, was Dean. The City of Coral Gables’ biography of Leen notes he earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 2000, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in 1997, where he double majored in Government and Economics. Source: Jackson Lewis 11/14/17

Glassdoor survey finds diversity recruiting a focus for 2018: A Glassdoor survey found that one in three (35%) hiring decision makers expect to increase investment in diversity and inclusion efforts and only 3% expect it to decrease; the remainder are continuing to invest at the same levels. The report, conducted among 750 hiring decision makers (those in recruitment, HR, and responsible for hiring) in the U.S. and UK, also finds that job candidate demographics are one of the most important recruiting metrics to hiring decision makers. The report also shows recruiting is less effective when companies do not invest in diversity and inclusion programs. Nearly three in five (59%) hiring decision makers report that a lack of investment in diversity and inclusion is a barrier or challenge their organization faces in attracting and hiring quality candidates. Information on diversity and inclusion efforts can help sway candidates. Nearly one in five (18%) of those surveyed report that diversity and inclusion initiatives are among the top elements that have the greatest influence on a candidate's decision to join their organization. 10% of hiring decision makers believe employees will voluntarily leave their organization in the next 12 months as a result of no diversity and inclusion programs. Source: Glassdoor 11/8/17

EEOC announces Fiscal Year 2017 results: In Fiscal Year 2017, the EEOC secured approximately $484 million for victims of discrimination in the workplace. This includes $355.6 million in monetary relief for those who work in the private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and other administrative enforcement and $42.4 million in monetary relief for charging parties through litigation. The EEOC also secured $86 million in monetary relief for federal employees and applicants. In fiscal year 2017, the EEOC filed 184 merits lawsuits, including 124 suits on behalf of individuals, 30 non-systemic suits with multiple victims, and 30 systemic suits. This is more than double the number of suits filed in fiscal year 2016. Additionally, EEOC’s legal staff resolved 109 merits lawsuits for a total monetary recovery of $42.4 million and achieved a favorable result in 90.8 percent of all district court resolutions. In addition, with changes in intake processes, the EEOC resolved 99,109 charges and reduced the charge workload by 16.2 percent to 61,621, the lowest level of inventory in 10 years. Source: EEOC 11/9/17

Employers are starting to have policies about climate change: As climate change creates more intense storms, companies have started preparing for work disruptions due to extreme weather. In a sign of the times, Fog Creek, a software company based in New York City, recently announced it would provide up to five days of paid “climate leave” for employees who can’t work because of extreme weather events. If there’s a declared state of emergency, the company will give affected employees even more time. During previous hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, the company let employees take time off on a case-by-case basis. One Miami-based employee had to evacuate during hurricane Irma, and Sandy displaced most of the company back in 2012. Throughout the storms, Fog Creek continued to pay the staff. But after seeing reports of people losing their jobs after missing work during this year’s particularly devastating hurricane season, Anil Dash, Fog Creek’s chief executive officer, wanted to formalize paid time off for his workers. The company, which competes for talent with bigger tech firms, such as Google and Facebook, offers its 35 employees generous benefits. Source: Bloomberg.com 11/13/17

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